Covid-19 discussion

Scientists I know have been estimating 4-6 months, so I’m guessing cdc is being conservative based on available data

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My parents (age 72) got their first shot today.

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Meanwhile, the county health department has closed the preregistration list because they get 400-500 doses/week and have 15000 people on the list.

I registered Dh and myself the day they opened the list last month, so I’m hoping we’re fairly high up…

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And then Dave Ramsey. Bless his heart.

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Excellent point Davey boy. Instead we should pass an extremely robust bill raising the minimum wage, increasing unemployment benefits, funding our cities and states, and also universal healthcare since it’s a leading contributor to that screw-Ed-ness. How progressive of him!

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Wow, UMass-Amherst now prohibits students from leaving their dorms to take walks outdoors, unless they are walking to get food or to get a covid test.
https://www.umass.edu/coronavirus/faq?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210211&instance_id=27043&nl=the-morning&regi_id=91585826&segment_id=51522&te=1&user_id=f70badb61b05667b0da4bb4f83ab2b63#highriskfaq

UC Berkeley too, even if masks are worn:

I thought outdoor exercise was supposed to be OK?
Maybe this is a case of “we’re banning it because college students have no impulse control so outdoor exercise will quickly devolve into hugging and gathering in groups and removing masks and I dunno, licking each other?”

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It is absolutely okay to take walks outside. Literally every time I’ve seen an actual scientist cited on this, it’s clear that time spent outside and 6 feet away is safe. If anything, it’s a key component of harm reduction.

These measures are idiotic and counter-productive - absolutist thinking taken to an extreme that will cause more harm, because now instead of taking a walk outside with friends students will gather indoors where they can’t be seen. This is the equivalent of abstinence only sex education.

Eta: They’re was a great New York Times piece on this, I’ll try to find it in a bit.

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That’s where I found it, I get the NYT emails though I don’t have a subscription so everything’s always paywalled.
The email summed up pretty well though.

What you say is totally going to happen in Mass. where the weather is (I’m guessing) shit.
At least in the Bay Area I’m assuming it’s not physically painful to be outdoors?

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Update on me btw. My body, especially the arm I got my second shot, hurts a lot and I slept like crap as a result. But no fever/chills/headache yet. And no more fatigue than I normally feel as a parent of a toddler lol. I’m about 20 hours out, we’ll see how it carries on from here.

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He’s a maskhole, right? So he probably sees nothing wrong with, if you lost your job, go wait tables (assuming you live somewhere restaurants or open) or deliver pizzas or work in a grocery store? Because covid isn’t real and no need to worry about dying due to your job? BOOTSTRAPS!!! :roll_eyes:

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This only applies to on-campus students though; so they can’t really gather, because their ability to leave their dorm rooms is restricted, and those are already monitored.

Off campus students are already doing whatever they want. The university says in it’s FAQ they’ve suspended one greek organization due to off campus activity, but they know they have no control over off campus students.

Restricting walks makes zero sense at all, but all their FAQ says it is in accordance with the state health department. I cannot imagine what kind of insane outbreak is happening there that they aren’t allowed to walk outdoors except to twice weekly covid tests.

Juxtaposing this with my state which has zero state mandated restrictions is so weird.

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Yeah this is extremely abusive. Pay us thousands of dollars on 12% interest so you can be borderline imprisoned. I’m not even got to click to see what’s actually happening it’s ruffling me that much. I’m so glad I graduated college before this turn of events. Higher ed is digging themselves into a hole so deep. Who WOULDN’T immediately drop out after this cluster****

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Well, yes, that too. I would not want to be racking up loans for the “privilege” of being locked in my room. I think I read they had until earlier this week to cancel their housing?

My neighbor’s nephew is a freshman on a campus that has been totally locked down except for holidays all year. He doesn’t mind at all. He said they were clear about the possibility at the start of his year and it doesn’t really affect his ability to socialize. He also reminded us that he is 18, that he’s had a social life of his own since he was about 15, and therefore over a third of his “life” he’s built relationships virtually, i.e. this is his normal - and that the people freaking out about these stories are either old (lol) or students that can’t adapt to change and would be freaking out about dorm life anyway without an easy thing to blame.

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But also…no outdoor exercise? The only place that disallowed that in their lockdown was wuhan.

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Almost nobody exercises outdoors in winter here anyway. I haven’t looked to see if sports are still happening but those are all indoors right now if they are. The last time he talked to my neighbor he said the rules about that kind of thing changed depending on case numbers. He did have his bike on campus and would go on solo bike rides but since the winter break he’s been chilling in his room unless he walks to pick up food (outside to a different building a few times a day).

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this must be the pacific northwesterner in me that is like “but outside? this is where exercise happens?”

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Yeah, that’s the part that made me go hmmmm. I’ve not seen that banned entirely outside of China. Though I think in UK (?) the walks and outdoor time was time-limited? Or maybe that was Italy?

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UK was 1 hour a day; italy allowed you to exercise alone though they tightened down the type of exercise as a lot of people were “exercising” just to get out of the house.

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Remember the variants that are circulating now are much more transmissible.

But also - college students. Some of this is trying, for two weeks (at Amherst) or one week (at Berkeley), to prevent the slippery slope (a fallacy except when there’s a lot of mud on the ground).

College students, especially the younger ones who are most likely to live in dorms, really can have the very best of intentions and then forget, or get distracted, or just be overwhelmingly tempted. The solo exercise might not be an issue in and of itself. The temptation to stop and talk to a friend “for just a minute” that turn into 30 without anyone meaning any harm could be something else. A short term total lockdown like this is designed to knock back the spread.

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